


Give it Up

by RectifiedPear



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Blood, Death, Loop, No Mercy Route, Nonbinary Frisk, Sans' personal hell, repeated death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 03:39:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5148902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RectifiedPear/pseuds/RectifiedPear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if you just stopped after repeated failures? What if you accepted defeat and put down the game? Where would it leave them all?</p><p>Frisk is written as genderless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give it Up

It was harder than he expected, the battle had kept him on his toes and at times the kid's knife had almost landed a few hits. Three times he'd felt air whoosh by as the blade almost got him. Almost only counted in horseshoes. He had been lucky, the attacks he dealt had kept the kid at bay enough for him to keep some space from their weapon and his body. 

Now it was all done, he'd come out victorious this time, another round went to him. Sans ten victories, the kid none. He chuckled at the mere concept of keeping count, after the fifth it had begun to blur, to repeat, to be just the same motions again and again.  
His shoulders sagged. For what? He knew no matter how many times he won, no matter how many deaths he delivered to this human, they would come back and try again. They were definitely filled with determination, had to be to kill his own brother while Papyrus had his arms open willing to spare and befriend the human, and he'd tried to look away when he saw every kill after his own brother had fallen. Shyren, Undyne, the froggits, the whimsalots, the list had grown so large Sans just pulled up his hood and turned away, keeping score on the bodies did him no good.

He'd warned them, told them if they kept on they'd have a bad time, the child had stared back at him, eyes blank specks of onyx, which had flickered into rubies for a second, and then carried on, heedless. He'd carried through, nine times he'd killed this child, whatever they called themselves, and now was the tenth. 

Before him they lay, bones impaling pale flesh and embedded into the filthy dirt that drank up the blood pooling from the human's body like a dry towel. Their head tilted at an angle, ruby orbs staring into nothingness as blood seeped freely from no longer trembling parted lips.  
The knife they favored was in a puddle of their own blood, one hand hung freely, fingers covered in the powder of many fallen monsters with a thin flecking of fresh human blood. In their last moments they'd reached out for the knife with that arm, feebly attempting to grab it as if holding the weapon would ease away their impending demise. Their other hand was tightly pressed against their chest, a long bone piercing through arm and lower torso in one swoop, spearing both arm and body to the ground.

Sans sat down, he could afford the rest, when the child reset it would be all fresh and new, no more tired bones, no impaled body before him. Another do-over.  
"Any minute now." Sans shifted his legs, bones rattling, he gazed at the human's corpse, feeling nothing but numbness. "You'd think by now I'd find this a bit more humerus," he said with a dry laugh, lacking any semblance to the ones he'd been having mere hours earlier with Papyrus.  
His brother likely would be having such a big smile on his skull if he knew Sans was going this far just to avenge him, he could just imagine it "WOWIE Sans, you really did show that human not to go about hurting the most popular future royal guard, Papyrus!" He could hear it now, Sans gave a loud sigh.

The very culmination of his being ached over not having Papyrus, they'd never have had any qualms if not for the human ... no, it was not worth his time to blame this foolish child, Sans should have been there for his brother, he should have intervened. Mentally he kicked himself, had he just been the bad guy and told him no this whole thing would have gone differently.  
Instead he was stuck fighting the kid until he lost, died, and then ... it would start over again. The kid would start over, and for better or worse Sans would be a part of that, and he'd be unable to stop what came. "For better or worse, heh, guess I'm as good as married to this life." He laughed hoarsely at the pathetic joke, fingers drumming against the ground as he waited. Over and over he would get dealt this hand, and only the child could alter time, Sans had tried to do it before, but it had never worked; only the human child had the power to bring peace or destruction upon everyone.

The skeleton tilted his head in confusion, it had been going on twenty minutes, the kid had never taken longer than five to reset, why wasn't the kid resetting? 

His pupils stared at their dead body, phalanges twitching into a fist as bitter resentment rose up in his chest. Was the kid toying with him? This wasn't how it went the last ten times. Glazed red eyes remained peering upward, one hand dangling, one arm speared, nothing had changed. Nothing had changed. Sans stood up. 

"Okay, kid, I get it, you're changing your game plan, right?"

Silence loomed, there wasn't any response, the reset did not come. Nothing changed, not the body, not him, not time. All was the same. 

"Look, kid, it's a bit late to heed my earlier words now. When I said don't come back, you came back nine more times." 

Sans ran his phalanges down the back of his skull, scratching at vertebra nervously. "I get it, you're pretending to be asleep, that's real cute, kid. Gonna leave me hanging."  
Three more minutes ticked by, then five, then seven, by the tenth minute Sans had started to sweat, his gaze going from the body to the ground then back. 

"Hey, don't be like that, kid. You know you're not done with me yet." Nothing, more minutes ticked by, still nothing. He began to raise his voice, words tumbling out. 

"Fine, be a quitter, kid! Some determination you had!" silence dominating the spaces between outbursts, the skeleton began to swear, stomping in circles as he fumed. 

Blue energy glew in his clenched palms, eyes taking on a similar glow as he became more and more irate. Still nothing happened, time carried on, flies began to flitter near, drawn close by the smell of blood and viscera. The pests creeped about upon human flesh, looking for food and a place to breed, Sans pried his angry eyes away in a mixture of disgust and hurt. 

Time continuing on like it did left him with his thoughts, and he began to question why he'd ever promised the lady on the other side of the wall anything, sure she'd had as bad of taste in humor as him, but ... Sans knew why he'd promised, because he'd wanted to one day meet the woman who made him blush and feel special. He'd gone back to that door and knocked before the human had come, there had been no answer, after Papyrus' death Sans had gone back and knocked, softly at first, then louder. He had gotten no response, but his chest told him she'd met the same fate Papyrus had. Now it was just him alive along with ... who else was there but Asgore left? The flower Papyrus talked to was still around, but was anyone else alive still?

"Kid, it's been two hours. I'm tired of waiting."

Nothing. It finally clicked now, the kid wasn't going to reset. They'd given up, and now he was stuck like this. Sans' hands covered his face as he doubled over where he sat. He was stuck in this time, stuck until a new kid came and reset or this kid ... there was no this kid, so he had to wait on another. But kids were so rare that at times, decades passed before new ones came. Sans choked.

He was stuck like this. Stuck living while all that he cared for was dead and gone.

The skeleton began to scream.

**Author's Note:**

> First posted fanfic on this site, I hope you enjoyed reading it, if anyone does fanart please tag it RectifiedPear so I can find it on sites like tumblr, all fanart of any written piece is appreciated.


End file.
